Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Support Your Local Small Town Bully (Second Update, 11/1)

Emphatically making his point: Tony Lopez of Homedale, Idaho, lets the public know his sentiments regarding Daryl Crandall, who is running for Owyhee County County Sheriff. The first sign he displayed may land him in jail. (Photo by Scott Watson for Pro Libertate.)

[Note the important correction below]

Tony Lopez was watching a movie with his wife when he happened to look through the living room window and noticed that Daryl Crandall was standing in front of the couple's modest home in Homedale, Idaho. That unwelcome sight was just the beginning of the sorrows that ruined what should have been a pleasant and uneventful Saturday night.

Crandall, a Deputy Sheriff who is trying to unseat his boss in next week's Owyhee County election, was "standing with his hands on his hips and a disgusted look on his face," Lopez recalled to Pro Libertate. "Then he got into his car, threw it in reverse and was already on his cell phone talking before he pulled away."

Lopez and Crandall had a history. A few months earlier, at the behest of a neighbor, Lopez reluctantly attended what had been described as a dinner party but turned out to be a campaign event for Crandall. At the urging of both his neighbor and the candidate, Lopez agreed to support Crandall, and accepted a campaign sign to display in his yard.

Shortly thereafter, as Lopez related to me, he learned of another incident in which on-duty police officers were out canvassing on behalf of Crandall's campaign. This outraged him even further and prompted him to retrieve the candidate's yard sign and display it prominently on his front yard -- with one modification, a black circle with a slash through it, the universal symbol for "no."

Does this look like a crime scene to you? The campaign sign Daryl Crandall gave to Tony Lopez as a gift, complete with the supposedly illegal embellishment.

"That sign was on my front yard for weeks," Lopez pointed out to Pro Libertate. "We had police pass by our house every day, sometimes several times a day, and nobody noticed it or had a problem with it -- until last Saturday night [October 25], when Crandall came by and called the police."

Five minutes after Crandall placed his call, two police cruisers arrived and decanted three officers from the Homedale Police Department. One of the officers was the same Perry Grant mentioned above, a former sheriff candidate who dropped out following last May's Oywhee County primary, in which Crandall defeated incumbent Sheriff Gary Aman.The decision to withdraw was an odd choice on Grant's part, since it left Deputy Crandall without an opponent. Some residents of Owyhee County -- Lopez among them -- believed that Grant had only entered the Sheriff's race in order to draw votes away from Aman, and that once Crandall had defeated his boss Grant's mission was over.

"I explained to Grant that it was my sign, displayed on my personal property, and that they had no business telling me I couldn't express my political opinions," Lopez related to me. "He told me, `Do you see the writing at the bottom, where it says that it was paid for by the campaign? This sign actually belongs to Crandall, and defacing it is a crime.'"

Lopez tried to explain that he had attempted to return the sign to Crandall, only to be told that it was his to keep. That's a point we'll return to anon. In any case, Grant wasn't disposed to hear Lopez's side of the matter. Grant's intransigence prompted Lopez -- a mild-mannered fellow, but apparently not diffident in dealing with bullies -- to remark: "We all know where you're going to work when Daryl's elected."

Grant threw up his hands and drove away, leaving two young, rather embarrassed patrol officers the task of giving Lopez a citation that could lead to a $1,000 fine and a year in jail. Crandall signed the complaint as the identified "victim."

"These guys were only doing their job," Lopez observed to me in a voice clotted with disgusted resignation. "They obviously didn't think this was a worthwhile use of their time, but they did give me the ticket and take my sign away."

Just a few hours later, a friend in the construction business supplied Lopez with the larger, more conspicuous sign seen in the photo above, which he keeps illuminated at night with a floodlight. "If Crandall is elected," Lopez promises, "I'll keep this new sign up until he's gone."Of course, Lopez by all rights should be able to display the modified Crandall campaign sign that drew the ire of the pathologically self-important candidate.

Yes, that sign was paid for by the Crandall campaign, but according to Lopez -- in testimony that would be difficult to dispute -- Crandall refused to take it back when offered the opportunity. That means it was conveyed to Lopez as a gift, and thus became the property of the recipient. Q.E.D.

Aman, who reportedly had already received job offers in other communities, says he was deluged with phone calls from county residents who hadn't voted, expecting him to win easily.

Urged to campaign as a write-in candidate, Aman replied that he would do so if his supporters could persuade 1,500 county residents to sign a petition on his behalf.As it happens, Lopez had decided to support Aman, but not because of any inducements offered by the sheriff or his supporters.

Crandall apparently suspected otherwise, and -- as reported by Lopez -- attempted to win the voter's support with the vague promise of a government job."You know, I'm going to be needing help in the county," Crandall allegedly told Lopez, alluding to various positions in the Sheriff's Office. When Lopez pointed out that money was already tight, Crandall reportedly replied, "Oh, there will be money."Nevertheless, Crandall failed to make the sale; Lopez still wasn't interested in voting or campaigning for him.

[Note correction immediately below the following paragraph]

But Crandall didn't see fit to retrieve his campaign sign; rather than reclaiming it, he actually put it up in Lopez's front yard, which is at very least an exceptionally presumptuous act.Any way a reasonable person would see it, Crandall had relinquished his claim on the campaign sign; it was now Lopez's property. So was the front yard in which the would-be sheriff planted the unwanted sign, an act which, under the relevant Idaho state statute, has a better claim to the status of "malicious injury to property" (by way of trespass) than Lopez's unauthorized modification.

Correction: In a follow-up conversation today (October 30), Mr. Lopez pointed out it was not Crandall who put up the sign in the Lopez family's front yard. While it is true that Crandall didn't take back the sign when it was offered to him -- "I told him I was lying down on it in my shop when I was changing the oil in my car," Lopez explains -- it was Lopez himself who put it up after modifying it to reflect his opinion of the candidate.

I am solely and exclusively responsible for the error in the original report, and I apologize to both Mr. Crandall and Mr. Lopez for my earlier, inaccurate report of this detail. -- WNG

Yet it is Lopez, whose property was violated and who claims to endure ongoing harassment by Crandall's supporters, who will be dragged into court on November 5 -- the day after the election -- because his chosen method of expressing a political opinion injured Daryl Crandall's overfed sense of self-regard.

"If Aman is re-elected, this whole thing will go away," Lopez predicted to me. "If Crandall wins, I suppose it will go to trial."Lopez, a father of four children (including a teenage son suffering from autism and mild mental retardation), was a stone mason until he broke his back on the job a few years ago. He now works as a paper carrier for the Idaho Press-Tribune, a newspaper published in nearby Nampa.

One of the nastiest little repercussions of Lopez's experience was a vituperative and ill-informed article by Press-Tribune associate editor Vicky Holbrook."I work for that paper, and she didn't even think it was worthwhile to talk to me, to get my side of the story," Lopez protested.

Daryl Crandall hasn't had similar difficulty in getting out his version of events, despite his consistent refusal to speak with the press -- about anything. His campaign literature, abounding in promises, is barren of relevant biographical detail.Immediately prior to the May 2008 Owyhee primary, Crandall -- like every other individual campaigning for a county office -- received a survey from the local paper, the redoubtable Owyhee Avalanche.

Crandall was one of two candidates who refused to answer the questionaire, which -- in addition to inquiries regarding specific policy matters -- would have required disclosure of biographical details and professional qualifications.Crandall makes a point of describing himself as a military veteran, but few details of his service are publicly available.

Since graduating from Glenns Ferry High School in 1981, he has served in a variety of law enforcement and security jobs, both in Idaho and Oregon; he describes himself as a 26-year veteran of law enforcement. What little is known of his record doesn't inspire confidence regarding either his professionalism or judgment.

The week prior to the primary, the Avalanche(whose editor, it must be noted, is Joe Aman, the Sheriff's brother) reported that Crandall, who joined the Owyhee Sheriff's Office in 2004, resigned just a few months earlier from his post as police chief in Banks, Oregon, a tiny town near Portland.

According to an account in the May 20, 2003 issue of the Portland Oregonian, Crandall's resignation the previous week pre-empted his likely firing by the City Council, which was looking into allegations of personal and professional misconduct. The latter involved improper bookeeping and unauthorized use of city property; the former was much more serious -- an allegation that he had choked his teenage daughter during a confrontation in 2003.

No charges were filed in the alleged choking incident. Crandall's former mother-in-law, Lorraine Wodyga, claims that she and Crandall's ex-wife have "spent thousands of dollars trying to conceal the daughter's whereabouts from her father," as noted by the Avalanche.This claim makes an interesting companion to one of the few publicly available facts about Crandall's tenure as Chief of Police in Banks, Oregon.

In 2001, Crandall helped draft, and testified before the legislature on behalf of, a proposed law (Senate Bill 542) that would have criminalized the act of "assisting a runaway child." This would have been a class "C" felony punishable by a prison term of five years and/or a $100,000 fine.

It's entirely possible that Crandall's interest in the issue of runaway children was prompted by purely public-spirited motivations, and untainted by his own domestic concerns. In similar fashion, it's possible that Crandall's zeal to prosecute Lopez for defacing a campaign sign reflects a marrow-deep commitment to the protection of property in principle, and that his indignant body language upon discovering Lopez's supposed infraction was the anguished reaction of a paladin of public order, rather than the theatrical petulance of a petty, self-intoxicated bully.

As I said, those are possibilities ... in roughly the same sense that it's possible Paris Hilton could become the leader of a movement to restore teenage chastity.

Prior to his five-year tenure as Chief of Police in Banks, Crandall was police supervisor in Glenns Ferry for roughly nine months, from January to October of 1998. He held various law enforcement positions in Idaho's Blaine County, Shoshone County, Canyon County, and the Homedale Police Department before being hired by Sheriff Aman to serve as a deputy in Idaho's second-largest county. At some point, according to one source I spoke with, he also pulled a stint as a security guard at the Ore-Ida plant in Ontario, Oregon.

Building a surveillance state abroad, when the real struggle for freedom is here at home: Sgt. Anthony DeAugustineo, a 25-year-old native of Homedale, Idaho, uses a portable scanner to check an Iraqi's fingerprints against a database of terrorism suspects before allowing the man to ride the bus. Don't be surprised to see the same technology employed, ere long, in airports, train stations, and elsewhere here in Der Heimat.

Shortly after he was given a summons to appear in court for the supposed crime of altering his own property to express his political views, Tony Lopez had a telephone conversation with his 25-year-old son Jay, who is currently stationed in Germany following combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"When I told him about what happened to me," Tony recalled, his voice thick with emotion, "Jay said, `Dad, what the hell am I fighting for over here?... Don't let them bully you, don't let them intimidate you. I sure wish I were there with you."

Although Tony Lopez would probably disagree with my assessment, I believe his experience, and the potential conflict he could have with a Sheriff prone to abuse his authority, illustrate another reason why the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should be ended immediately.

As the government ruling us, from the imperial heights in Washington to the smallest retail outlets of tyranny found in rural America, becomes overtly hostile toward what remains of our liberty, the fittest and most idealistic of our youth should be engaged in the real freedom struggle here at home, in whatever fashion that battle may need to be fought.

"The crime of Malicious Injury ... [requires] evidence of a specific type of criminal intent known as malice," Yarbrough observes. "Anyone can see that Mr. Lopez only intended to make a political statement. This is evidenced by the fact that he put a political sign in his front yard in broad daylight.... Criminals do not display their criminal deeds in their front yard for the world to see."

Given the absence of criminal malice involved in this matter -- unless, as Daryl Crandall's needy ego would dictate, we assume that public opposition to his candidacy is intrinsically malicious -- it "cannot even be considered a dispute," continues Yarbrough. "It is best characterized as a property misunderstanding. This fact makes the presence of criminal intent even less likely. It is easy to see that Mr. Lopez may have thought that the sign was his. It was left at his property un-displayed and effectively abandoned for many weeks. Mr. Crandall showed no concern for the sign until Mr. Lopez expressed his political speech with it."

"The truth is Mr. Lopez never acted like a criminal or with any criminal intent," concludes Yarbrough. "He was being a good citizen by expressing his political views. When a nerve was struck, Mr. Lopez was charged with a serious crime over a simple misunderstanding involving a sign of nominal value."

In this matter, is the prissy thuggishness of Daryl Crandall that is best characterized as a crime: Unable to countenance public criticism without getting his frilly underthings in a twist, he maliciously arranged for the spurious prosecution of an innocent and well-respected citizen, who certainly has better things to worry about than the time and expense that will be required to deal with Crandall's fraudulent charge in court.

Because Gary Aman's re-election will require voters to write in his name, and spell it correctly (a mis-spelling would void a ballot), there is a chance that Daryl Crandall could be elected sheriff next Tuesday, making him the paramount law enforcement officer in Idaho's second-largest county (in geographic terms).

This can't be permitted to happen -- not only because of the unprovoked crime Crandall committed against Tony Lopez, but also because the candidate's history demonstrates that he has no business whatsoever holding an office of public trust, particularly one involving the discretionary use of lethal violence. Watch this space for additional details, coming soon.

38 comments:

Anonymous
said...

You know, I love Idaho and the people who live here. It really can be a beautiful place. I was born and raised here.

That said, Idaho has to be one of the last bastions of truly inbred small town politicking - always has been. And in a county such as Owyhee county (though it may be the largest it is also one of the least densely populated in the entire country) good-ole-boy politics rule.

I may have to swing through Homedale just to give Mr. Lopez a bit of moral support - and flip Crandall the bird.

I can't find anything in the Idaho statutes which says that campaign signs remain the property of the campaign. I wonder what the Secretary of State really said to the reporter about the ownership of signs and what he was asked.

I did find a statute and regulation allowing the state to file suit to recover costs for encroachments upon right-of-ways. I wonder if signs stuck in right-of-ways are considered the campaign's for the filing of such suits to recover costs.

Why didn't the reporter ask the SOS to give her the authoritative source to back up his statement?

I can't find anything in the Idaho statutes which says that campaign signs remain the property of the campaign. I wonder what the Secretary of State really said to the reporter about the ownership of signs and what he was asked.

I'd noticed the same thing about the Idaho statutes, as well. It seems to me that a campaign sign is just another variety of printed literature. Thus if someone can be prosecuted for defacing a campaign sign, on the same construction he should be criminally liable for defacing the image of a candidate -- by drawing a mustache, for example -- on a pamphlet or similar handout.

I think that the SOS is bootstrapping the method the state uses to obtain costs for removal of encroachments such as signs into a claim that ALL signs belong to the campaign. They probably sue campaigns for costs of removal on right-of-ways, which is questionable in and of itself. Thus, the SOS extrapolates that to signs on private property.

WOW amazing that my father could be charged over some B.S. Well tell you what, I am a 6 year veteran of the Army INFANTRY, I have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dad the INFANTRY guys who do the real fighting are here to support you, and a petition of support has been started! You are supported by many soldiers here, the word is spreading in Germany!!! Good Luck! Thanks for the support you give those of us who fight and die everyday! This time we are supporting you!!!

As an Owyhee County resident I am ashamed that we are getting so much press over a candidate that is so obviously lacking in character. A simple visit with Mr. Lopez, whom I believe acted totally without malice, would have put the entire matter to rest. Mr. Crandall, if you feel so violated, please stand up and defend your actions where all of the fine voters of Owyhee County can hear you. I'll voice my opinion at the polls and would encourage all of my fellow voters to do the same. Shame on you Mr. Crandall.

The last paragraph of the piece reminds me of something Edward Abbey once wrote. "The tragedy of modern war is not so much that young men die but that they die fighting each other - instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals."

What we have got here is one of two kinds of the worst type of criminal. One type is your typical politician who tries every which way he can to get his grubby hands on your money. The second he does it becomes his money and he best knows what to do with it. Enrich himself and his fellow buddies in crime.

The second kind of criminal is this wannabe Sheriff Crandal. He epitomizes the concept of putting someone in charge of something like a broom closet and all the sudden you have a dictator of the broom closet.

This Crandall fellow I imagine, with public support evidenced by his election if he wins, will run rough shod over civil liberties for a short time before he is recalled or fired. Being put in charge of a criminal gang like the police requires someone of tempered attitude, so as not to let the badge begin to give you rights superseding the rights of others.

He makes me think of a cop who will eat free (stolen) donuts, drink free (stolen)coffee, run red lights and generally make himself a nuisance to the entire public. If he is elected there will be a place in Idaho I no longer want to ever drive through again.

A number of us "locals" have been following Mr. Crandall's antics and career for several years now. His malicious actions against Mr. Lopez do not surprise any of us. At this point, if Crandall should win the election, we are considering taking out ads in several area papers inviting Crandall to have the charge against Mr. Lopez dropped and issue him a public apology. If he refuses to do so, we are prepared to make the remainder of his proffessional life extremely uncomfortable.

Grigg: In this matter, is the prissy thuggishness of Daryl Crandall that is best characterized as a crime: Unable to countenance public criticism without getting his frilly underthings in a twist, he maliciously arranged for the spurious prosecution of an innocent and well-respected citizen, who certainly has better things to worry about than the time and expense that will be required to deal with Crandall's fraudulent charge in court.

Dog: There's WAY too many commoner [and local donut connoisseur] crybabies, teet suckers [especially local donut connoisseurs] , and all around "we need a LAW!" whiners in this hyper- hissy, pissy, prissy country.

Hehe... I tend to share that mindset, obviously ;).

Well, this shall be an interesting observation to determine if the fine folk of sparsely-populated Owyhee county are, or can possibly become, well-informed, self-educated citizens concerning their upcoming sheriff election.

It's hard to fathom that a mere 10K folk could so easily be manipulated into unquestionable support of this Mr. Crandall to be their head paladin. Besides, wouldn't he, at the very least, be considered an "outlander" to boot? A paladin vagabond of sorts?

Yes, please do keep the Pro Libertate patrons up to date on this, albeit localized, matter. After all, this could be considered a rough microscopic focused image of the entire country in essence...sigh.

Daryl Crandall has no business being in law enforcement, let alone Sheriff.

He is dishonest, unethical and immoral in every possible way: personally and professionally. How do I know? I've known Daryl Crandall since 2000, when he was Chief of Police and I was President of our local Homeowners Association. During his divorce in 2002, he and I began dating. We immediately began living together and shortly thereafter, we became engaged. Our relationship formally lasted until January 2005 although it began to dwindle long before that, largely in part to his professional conduct.

I have been a eye witness to his horrific and questionable conduct. Without question, Mr. Crandall is a corrupt cop who breaks department policy, and the law, if he deems it may benefit him in some capacity, whether it be financial, materialistic or just another "thing" to further fuel his control and power hungry ego. Frankly, I don't know if Mr. Crandall can technically see the difference between right and wrong. That line is apparently quite blurry for Mr. Crandall - if the line exists at all.

Let's hope the folks in Owhyee County have been able to see thru his thinly veiled guise of decency and not elect this man into office. Even if he were elected - akin to what the last Anonymous poster stated - the rest of his professional life will be miserable... assuming he's not recalled, fired or run out of the county first.

Before the primary Crandall and Grant came to me house together campigning. I asked them why they were doing this in concert with each other. Grant told me that they would both run against Aman in order to beat him in the primary. If they were succesfull then Grant would drop out and again go to work for Crandall at O.C.S.O. I was also offered a position with the posse. I declined their gracious offer of allowing a Crandall sign on my property and immediatly became a supporter of Gary Aman. Grant droped out of the race a few weeks ago as they planned. Anyone who thinks this race has been run in a honest fashion by Crandall really needs to think this thru. All the promisess made from Crandall have only one end. Getting into office. I am certain if he wins the election, law enforcement in our county will be taken back 20 years compared to the efficiency of the current Sheriff. Gary Aman is a good man, we need to keep him.

I think that it is pretty much just BS that Crandall can call up the police of Homedale and have them issue someone a citaiton for defacing a sign they have on their private property..Is Crandall gonna start patroling Homedale now and getting the Homedale police to start citing these wanna be gangbanggers in Homedale that spray paint on the local bussiness around town.. So basicly its not ok to deface your own sign on your privit property but its ok for people to go around and deface streets signs and buildings..Why dont you guys catch the people doing that and causing trouble then just an innocent man expressing his freedom of rights.. Is Crandell in charge... I dont think so... So why are the Homedale cops at his every move.. Last time I checked Crandall dosent run this town and are we just gonna stand around and let him do this or are we gonna express our freedom of rights.. I say NO CRANDALL... Stand up Owyhee County and let your voice be heard...Thanks Lopez..

ed yarboprough is a idiot and should not have license to practice law....ask anybody who was a vicitm while he was the p.a.. A privte citizen has the right to sign a citation for a misdemeanor offense, and if the officer did not witness it, the officer is merely serving a summons, happens all the time and is not new

Well, Look at all the Aman lovers here. During the Primary Election, the Owyhee Avalanche was used to slur Crandall, and now Tony Lopez and this website have found a way to try before the General Election with the Owyhee Avalanche looking like it stayed out of it this time. Over 80% of the vote in Bruneau/Grandview... He won North Marsing (a strong Aman place) and all of Homedale (another strong Aman place where the residents discovered he does not care past the money he gets from Homedale). A deputy was even written up for spending 54 minutes in Homedale talking to a Homedale Officer and a State Police Officer.

Owyhee County needs change. If not Crandall, somebody. Another 4 years of Das Boot is not necessary.

you know, it seems strange that once certain people start going door to door for aman to get signatures for his petition and all of the sudden there is a huge increase in the maount of business done with the sheriffs office, some might even think that promisies are being paid off early.

"Well, Owyhee County is a very thinly populated rural territory, and the Sheriff's Office doesn't pay that well..."

Daryl Crandall might also have added "However, since I'm a talentless loser who couldn't earn a living in the private sector mopping floors and taking out trash if my life depended on it, I took whatever hand-out from the State dressed up in the form of a job that I could find."

This, dear readers, is the unspoken explanation for the "quality" of "law enforcement" personnel plaguing the nation at all levels. Because it is nearly impossible to find talented, self-motivated individuals who aspire to productivity and accomplishment, and who have consciences and respect for their fellow man to work in the "law enforcement" field, the State must rely on society's dregs to fill the void. But this is fine with the Powers-That-Be; after all, a brainless thug without a conscience is the ideal enforcer for their designs on the peasantry. It is only when bullybots like Crandall engage in depredations and mayhem not directly beneficial to, or that harm or embarrass the interests of their puppeteers that they have to be neutralized (remember that Dr. Frankenstein was ultimately destroyed by the monster that he created).

Regardless of whether or not Daryl Crandall wins election to Owyhee County's highest "law enforcement" office, whoever ultimately prevails at the polls is very likely to be little or no improvement.

way to paint all law enforcement with same brush. what do you do? time to put down the bag of cheetoh's , get off your moms couch and ride your skateboard to your job at sonic at least there we know the only thing you will screw up is a order of frys

way to paint all law enforcement with same brush. what do you do? time to put down the bag of cheetoh's , get off your moms couch and ride your skateboard to your job at sonic at least there we know the only thing you will screw up is a order of frys

Daryl (or whichever one of his pals in blue or aspiring OC deputies you happen to be):

Before attempting to argue in a public forum, you should first seriously consider doing three things:

1)Take some night classes in remedial English grammar and spelling, skills that should have become rote by the end of the sixth grade (assuming that you made it that far).

2) Organize the closest thing you have to thoughts into complete sentences that convey a unifying theme, in logical order, to present a coherent viewpoint.

3) Present actual statements of fact in your argument that clearly refute the other person's specific points with which you disagree.

Without doing the above, you serve only to validate my previous statement and serve as a perfect example of why so many readers of this blog feel a visceral loathing and contempt for members of "law enforcement." To be fair, however, I do not expect you to act on any of my suggestions above. Most "law enforcement" personnel simply lack the intellectual capacity or temperament to do so, as you so amply demonstrate here.

wow, that was pretty impressive, I should be ashamed of myself for having an opinion. Let me give this a try:

The unwarranted attack on Crandall lacks a factual basis, and the the support for Lopez shows a bias that is without dispute. Crandall is a deputy sheriff that was hired by the man who now claims that he is not qualified to hold the position. All of the information that Gary Aman has given on Daryls background was all known to Gary before he hired him. Does the current sheriff deserve to hold office if something as simple as a background check can not be completed.

In the state of Idaho, there is no educational experience required to hold the office of sheriff.

I do apoligize if my grammer and vocabulary skills are not to your satisfaction, and I will work harder on making sure that I worry about that when I post in the future. Funny thing though, I am able to get the highly educate to argue with me, just a lowly hick from Melba Idaho.

Amen, I did not intend to insult the very fine people of Melba, just making my point that we (owyhee)county people are often misjudged and labeled, and I am damn proud to be a redneck. You are absoloutely correct if the allegations are true about Crandall, but the fact that aman hired him is not an allegation, it is fact and is very difficult to get past.

Mr. Grigg ~ thank you for your blog. I have enjoyed reading it many times. I do not live in Owyhee County, but have family and friends that do. I have followed this Aman vs Crandall from the beginning. I have talked to Mr. Lopez and believe in the man. I am praying for him this morning as he goes to Court for this "crazy charge" against him. God Bless America. Thank you again.AP

Well there was alot of people that voted this guy in to the office and took all there time and sweat to help him and look at all the crap that they got he fired one and but one in a stress mode that she had to quite and now he has all his clan and the ones that are not in to it are getting there ass fired and its all bull shit they stand up to keep the department to stay running and look where they are going in all the years when GARY AMEN was sherrif i have never seen so much shit and crap go on in that depaertment.....if it was up to me I would tell that guy to pay the people that help him get in to pay them for all there time becasue there the ones that cared and then to treated them like SHIT.

Amam got the boot for protecting his drunken friends, the now infamous horse dragging to the poor animals deaths on state hwy 95. I personally called him to find out what the miles of blood and gore were on the state hwy outside of homedale. He said this matter was handled privately. Come again, shreriff? A horrific neglegent accident where three horses are drug to death right out of town on a state highway? We here know the people involved and their drinking at their private arena. They put the two dead and the dying horse "in" the trailor and hauled these horribly misued animals off to jordon valley, oregon. Now dissheveled daryl has been asked by our commissioners to leave, he won't go without a pry bar, either. Nither Crandall nor Aman are fit to be sheriff in my opinion. Most of us didn't vote for Crandall, we voted against Aman. Hopefully in 2012 we can get an honest, impartial sheriff who won't kiss the "eleven families" behinds....

Amam got the boot for protecting his drunken friends, the now infamous horse dragging to the poor animals deaths on state hwy 95. I personally called him to find out what the miles of blood and gore were on the state hwy outside of homedale. He said this matter was handled privately. Come again, shreriff? A horrific neglegent accident where three horses are drug to death right out of town on a state highway? We here know the people involved and their drinking at their private arena. They put the two dead and the dying horse "in" the trailor and hauled these horribly misued animals off to jordon valley, oregon. Now dissheveled daryl has been asked by our commissioners to leave, he won't go without a pry bar, either. Nither Crandall nor Aman are fit to be sheriff in my opinion. Most of us didn't vote for Crandall, we voted against Aman. Hopefully in 2012 we can get an honest, impartial sheriff who won't kiss the "eleven families" behinds....

Continued: Daryl Crandall's campaign slogan "People first" was missing the first word, "My people first." He had his unqualified spouse being paid for mussell abatement boat checks, ran his fuel budget out and wanted more (how about buying more economical cars than chargers and trucks from salt lake) Shows up at least one day a week so he's in compliance, doesn't get along with anyone but the mrs. and his chief deputy Slade Heeb. (Yes, his real name, or so we are told.) To our not esteemed sheriff, I have belated advice, be nice to people on your way up, they are the same people you will meet on your way down. Good riddance to this petty yosemite sam wannabe.

Continued: Daryl Crandall's campaign slogan "People first" was missing the first word, "My people first." He had his unqualified spouse being paid for mussell abatement boat checks, ran his fuel budget out and wanted more (how about buying more economical cars than chargers and trucks from salt lake) Shows up at least one day a week so he's in compliance, doesn't get along with anyone but the mrs. and his chief deputy Slade Heeb. (Yes, his real name, or so we are told.) To our not esteemed sheriff, I have belated advice, be nice to people on your way up, they are the same people you will meet on your way down. Good riddance to this petty yosemite sam wannabe.

Let us not forget the trivial matter of the FBI seizing Crandall's and one other computer from the sheriff's office. Rumors are rampant, from bugging the station to twenty-five weapons charges. It is a fact that one of his jailors stole an inmates jacket. When videotape of the theft was presented to Crandall, he did not fire the thief; instead he went after the person who brought up the video. Now the thief is claiming sexual harrassment, againsnt the honest cop who came forward with the videotape in the first place. It is this petty foolishness mixed in with serious allegations that makes Crandall, in my opinion, a cunning moron. Stupid, but streetsmart, like a wharf rat. And like a wharf rat, he is not so much immoral, as moral less. Doing what he's always done to get by, gnawing all the crumbs he can get his greedy claws on. BTW Daryl, give the hand made blankets and expensive jacket that your charity drive recieved. Like those were gifts to you? They were donated for needy folk. We're waiting.......